2025 in Review

January

Fun

• 🎳 Ralph’s bowling birthday
• 🀄️ Learning Mahjong at Sik Fan

Art:

• Breaking Lines at the Estorick Collection

Books:

• The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• The Art of the Straight Line by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson

February

Fun

• Celebrating my birthday with good friends 🎉

Books:

• Design as Art by Bruno Munari
• Things: a story of the 60s by Georges Perec

Work:

• Visiting Barrow-in-Furness to deliver a one day workshop on OKRs for Ørsted Wind Energy
• Speaking to ~50 digital transformation folks at the British Film Institute on OKRs

Gigs:

• Maribou State at Ally Pally
• TDC Tunes: Electronic in the Tower

March

Travel:

• Visiting Amsterdam!

Gigs:

• Sub Focus at Ally Pally
• Tucan Band at Ninety One Living Room
• Experimental ambient shows at The Old Church in Stoke Newington

Art:

• Leigh Bowery at Tate Modern

Blog posts:

• Visual Control
• Decomposition

April

Blog posts:

• Building an OKR Community

Books:

• Species of Spaces and other Pieces by Georges Perce

Travel:

• Norfolk where we joined the RSPB, and I visited Norwich Cathedral for the first time in 30 years

Gigs:

• Hania Rani at ICA
• Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein and Oh to Believe in Another World by William Kentridge at South Bank centre accompanied by a live performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10

Days out:

• The Warner Bros. Studio Tour – The Making of Harry Potter and enjoying it far more than I imagined.

May

Blog posts:

• Building an OKR Community

Celebrating my son’s 13 birthday with visits to:

• Horizon 22. Great views over London, terrific ice-cream, and FREE admission! Great alternative to the Shard.
• Hastings again–it’s becoming tradition!

Travel:

• Attending the excellent GDS Strategy & Assurance away day in Bristol
• 🎉 Michigan to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday!

Gigs:

• Haribo Kimchi at Southbank Centre
• Dominique Dumont and World Brain at the ICA

June

Work

• Getting more buy-in from senior government folk to use our live delivery dashboard

Fun

• A visit from our Canadian friends!
• Visits to the Parliament Hill Fields Lido in Hampstead Heath

Inspiration:

• The latest Serpentine Pavilion designed by Marina Tabassum. My wife points out that a lot could be done with this money to help people who are struggling. She’s right, of course, but it is a beautiful object and place to sit and meet and exchange ideas and drink coffee.
• No Kings Day
• Iron and the soul by Henry Rollins
• AI 2027

Things I’ve made:

• Revamped my blog post on diversity & pride

July

Work

• Wrapped up my lean portfolio role with the UK’s Government Digital Service
• Held a fun half-day workshop with digital teams at BFI

Travel

• Visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and parents in California
• Running with the Healdsburg Running Company crew at Lake Sonoma
• Seeing giant redwood trees at Armstrong Woods
• Beach camping with longtime friends on the Olympic Peninsula

August

Work

• A fun half day on-site workshop with B-Lab UK

Art

• Yoshitomo Nara @ the Hayward Gallery
• Do Hoh Suh @ Tate Modern
• Feel the Sound @ The Barbican

Fun

• Doing a London Mystery Guide walk with my son
• Visiting Bletchley Park with my son
• Camping & hiking with my son in the New Forest (so many ponies!)
• Discovering Strudel and attending a couple of super-fun live-coding events

Other

• Supporting my wife to write her master’s dissertation

September

Work

• Running a second full-day workshop with B Lab UK around OKRs and business planning. Best part: Luna the dog!
• Onboarding for a new longer term role with a new government client including getting security clearance
• Ran a super fun full-day workshop with a casual games client in Berlin.

Travel

• Weekend in Berlin ahead of a client workshop

Books

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Finished
• The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild - Started

Blog

• Revamped my blog post on how to write OKRs
• Wrote a new post about Aligning OKRs
• Cleaned up a few other bits

Discoveries

Note to self: Revisit these when you have time

• Tristram “Tris” Oaten, especially “How to Sound Great” via Lisa Reimers
• This awesome geological map via Mark Ehrhardt
• The pleasures of live coding and performing for the first time at an Algorave.
• Nudel.cc - an addictively fun live-coding jam space
• Pasta Gang - a wonderful live coding community
• The weird & wonderful Pink Trombone vocal synthesiser
• Stand Out Socks I like these and these and these and…
• Hexler - Nice products for creative coding
• Alpaca 2025 talks from Saturday the 20th

October

Work

• Finally started a new delivery gig with the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office

Art

• Lee Miller at Tate Britain
• Visiting the National Gallery where the re-hung Bacchus and Ariadne looks terrific.
• Seeing the premiere of Hamnet at the London Film Festival